One of the hazards encountered on a golf course is the bunker or sand trap. Once a ball enters a bunker and the player has hit the ball out, golf etiquette calls for the player to fill and smooth over his footprints and depressions left in the sand after he has hit a golf ball out of the bunker. The necessary restoration of the bunker surface is generally carried out with a bunker rake which is left alongside each bunker.
Such bunker rakes have added to the cost of golf course operation in order to ensure that sufficient number of rakes is available around the bunkers. In addition, esthetically, golf rakes lying around the bunkers diminish the visual aspect of the golf course. Further, many golfers often find the golf rakes provided by the golf course to be an unwanted obstacle to play, and when needed, in an inconvenient location. Rakes lying around bunkers add to the risk of a golf ball hitting the rakes during play which can penalize the golfer by perturbing the trajectory of the ball.
Furthermore, in addition to the fact that the cheaply constructed bunker rakes have a tendency of breaking and thus have a very limited useful life, golfers tend to take such rakes away from the bunkers in order to retrieve golf balls from waterways and like inaccessible locations.
Accordingly, there has been a need for a novel sand rake assembly which overcomes the drawbacks of prior devices available to date.